Man City FFP: Insider shares latest as Prem bring in ‘No.1 choice for government’
Football finance insider Stefan Borson has shared an update on the FFP case involving Manchester City, with a barrister used by the government brought in to oversee proceedings.
City were found guilty of over 100 charges of financial breaches. They have appealed the decision, but if their appeal fails, their sanctions could be catastrophic.
It’s expected the sporting sanctions would be such that the Citizens would not remain in the Premier League.
But as Borson explains to talkSPORT, progress has been slow.
He said: “There’s a lot of confusion as to the exact stage that we’re at.
“I’ve heard lots of different things, so I don’t know whether they’ve had the sanction hearing or not had it.
“I was told by somebody who should know that there had been no sanction hearing as of last week.
“There’s then the question of whether the sanction hearing is published or not.
“City will, I’m sure, try and argue it should’ve been published or that it shouldn’t be binding or we shouldn’t have a minus whatever, in the way we did with Everton and Nottingham Forest.
“We’ve seen it crystallise with Everton and Nottingham Forest, so the Premier League may well argue that it should crystallise immediately [with Man City].”
Top barrister brought in
Borson has also revealed a top barrister has been brought in to oversee proceedings.
He said: “There’s so many different aspects to what’s going on right now, the level of litigation, appeal, other issues…
“The Premier League just brought on a guy, Sir James Eadie KC, who is the No.1 choice for government in these sorts of very technical, public law disputes, or judicial review type things.
“So there’s obviously something going on in terms of an issue that requires a non-commercial KC to get involved.
“We just don’t know what it is and there’s just a number of different things it could be… it could be an appeal to part of the disciplinary section case, or it could be a Rule X arbitration, which is a challenge or an appeal to an appeal…
“It gets very complicated.”
Sheikh Mansour appears unmoved amid the potential sanctions, having reportedly injected an extra £100million into the City Football Group, as the clubs evidently need to continue finding money.
That is for all the clubs in the group, of course, not just City.
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